Saturday, October 22, 2016

On a day when the government announced the final contours of the ambitious regional connectivity scheme, SpiceJet chief Ajay Singh today said the government could look at other ways to fund it rather than impose “more of a tax on consumers”.
Visibily unhappy at the decision to charge a “very small levy” towards creating the Regional Connectivity Fund (RCF), he also said the government can even finance the same from its own budget.
“When you build a railway station it is not that you start penalising passengers for that railway station. So, when you launch a scheme of this sort, perhaps the government needs to fund it from its budget instead of imposing more of a tax on consumers.
“So, we oppose it from the perspective that surely there could be other ways to fund the scheme which is nationally so important,” Singh, who is the airline’s Chairman and Managing Director, said soon after the final scheme was announced.
21/10/16 PTI/The Financial Express